Study comes out against spanking, ties it with mental illness

Take a look at this story on a recent study that showed that spankings in childhood could lead to increased rates of mental illness in adulthood. Previous studies had linked child abuse to adult mental illness, but this study makes the case that non-abusive spanking may also boost the likelihood of suffering from mental illness later on in life.

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“survey of 35,000 U.S. adults who were non-institutionalized, the researchers found that 1,300 of the participants had experienced physical punishment – such as being “pushed, grabbed, shoved, slapped or hit” by their parents.
The results showed that about two to seven percent of mental disorders in the study were linked to these types of physical punishment.”

2 to 7 % of the 1300 thats like 30 to 100 people of 35,000 had a reaction to spanking? Thats not even .5% of the people. Should we really be concerned?

But “the results showed that about two to seven percent of mental disorders in the study were linked to these types of physical punishment” is one of the dumbest bits of statistical fallacy I’ve seen in a while, and I see a lot of them.

The study doesn’t show a *link* between 2-7% of cases and mental illness; if it’s lucky, it shows a very slightly higher likelihood of mental illness if you’re spanked. And likely not even that.

“the results showed that about two to seven percent of mental disorders in the study were linked to these types of physical punishment”
So which came first, the mental disorder or the punishment? Is it possible that the study is showing that parents resort to physical solutions in face of a situation that they cannot seem to handle any other way?
Why do we allow such clap trap to be published as science?

I have a study that shows that if four particular seventh graders in the Greece, NY school district had occasionally had their butts warmed by mommy or daddy when they were younger they wouldn’t have abused a nice old lady who was their school bus monitor…

I wish I could be around for the study in a couple of generations that says “Our fore fathers and mothers allowed their children to misbehave with no consequence whatsoever, the children were told the world at large owed them and they had no responsibility for their actions – creating a society that believes violence settles all disputes”

Josho – studies haven’t held up the link that disciplinary spanking begets violence. Abusive “spanking” does beget abuse, but there is a difference between what our parents and grandparents did and beating the c**p out of a kid.
What has held up repeatedly is that kids who are allowed to run “free” with no rules tend to regress to violence, a la “Lord of the Flies”.

Maggie, that wasn’t CAK’s scenario. What CAK suggested is that no spanking — and, more importantly, no consequences (which has nothing to do with spanking/not spanking) — leads to the mindset that violence settles all disputes. That’s not the same as saying that kids who have no boundaries resort to violence. Rather, I’m saying that if parents demonstrate to kids that spanking is the decisive end to a dispute, then that leads to a mindset that hitting settles disputes.